1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle side airbag apparatus for protecting the head and chest of an occupant.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, side airbags have been proposed which are long in the vertical direction and large in size to realize an extended occupant protection area that also covers the head of the occupant as well as the chest (Refer to Japanese Patent No. 3467473).
Japanese Patent No. 3467473 describes a side airbag that is manufactured by sewing a vehicle-outer-side base cloth and a vehicle-inner-side base cloth together into the shape of a bag. In this side airbag, a tether (partitioning cloth) in which a plurality of communication holes are formed is sewn to the middle portion of the side airbag in the vertical direction thereof, whereby the side airbag is divided into a lower chamber located below the tether and used to protect the chest of the occupant and an upper chamber located above the tether and used to protect the head of the occupant.
However, this side airbag still has a room for improvement as follows.
That is, when a side airbag that is long in the vertical direction and large in size as the one described in Japanese Patent No. 3467473 is deployed upon a side collision of the vehicle, the side airbag is deployed upward to the area above the door trim. At this time, however, because a typical door trim has a concave portion above an armrest, the side airbag is deployed along the outline of the concave portion. Therefore, when the side airbag is being deployed toward the area above the door trim, the deployment direction of the upper chamber of the side airbag tends to be biased to the inner side of the vehicle in the lateral direction thereof. Therefore, it is difficult to deploy a side airbag of this kind to between the head of the occupant and the door window glass.